LeicaStreet shooting in Marrakech

All-Pro

I spent the last four days in Marrakech with M9, Elmarit 24mm and 50mm Summilux asph. Street shooting was quite an interesting challenge as people do not like being photographed. So getting the shot was more important than careful framing, composing etc. I took quite many street shots, all from the hip, zone focused with the Elmarit 24, whilst pretending not to take pictures. A few here:View attachment 2955View attachment 2956View attachment 2957View attachment 2958

Legend

Nice shots although I prefer the DP2x ones! I believe that the camera shyness is religious. We went to Fes and Morocco (rode the Marrakesh Express train from Fes to Marrakesh) two or three years ago and I was also very cautious about waving my camera in people's faces!

All-Pro

Nice shots although I prefer the DP2x ones! I believe that the camera shyness is religious. We went to Fes and Morocco (rode the Marrakesh Express train from Fes to Marrakesh) two or three years ago and I was also very cautious about waving my camera in people's faces!

There is only one from the DP2x, the one with Apple's product placement. The 41mm equiv. focal length allowed to keep more distance than the 24 Elmarit and the Sigma's small size made it possible to "hide" the camera. Wheras with the M9, the only technique which worked was to wear it tourist like, around the neck and the right hand casually holding the neck strap and camera body with the thump ready to push the shutter button. I got a lot of stares at the camera and often women would preventively cover eyes or faces with their hands.

Bring Jack back!

There is only one from the DP2x, the one with Apple's product placement. The 41mm equiv. focal length allowed to keep more distance than the 24 Elmarit and the Sigma's small size made it possible to "hide" the camera. Wheras with the M9, the only technique which worked was to wear it tourist like, around the neck and the right hand casually holding the neck strap and camera body with the thump ready to push the shutter button. I got a lot of stares at the camera and often women would preventively cover eyes or faces with their hands.

All-Pro

"Featured Comment by Chris Lucianu: "'You can't use that, it's not professional' are almost the very words Ella Maillart told me she heard from her editors when she proposed to travel to Central Asia and China with her Leica in the 1930s.

"You may want to look up Ella Maillart: adventurer, travel writer, photographer. Her first major tribulations took her across the Soviet Union through to Soviet Turkestan, 1930–32. On her way back, she stopped over in Germany, where she was met by Ernst Leitz II. Leitz was so impressed with her photographs that he presented her, literally, with her first Leica. (Her last would be a CL, forty years later.) Ella went back to Central Asia, and was joined for a trek all across China and the Himalayas, from Beijing to Srinagar, by Peter Fleming (Ian Fleming's elder and arguably more interesting brother). Both she and Fleming published their individual accounts of that journey.

"I met Ella Maillart half a century after her first Asian adventures. A spry, ageless Kate Hepburn character, she was preparing a trek to Bhutan and Sikkim. I took her picture with my OM-1. She examined the Olympus, weighed it carefully in her hands, and said: 'Not too bad for an SLR. Still, the lenses are bulkier than my Leica. You can't travel light enough up there.' I joked that she should consider a Minox. 'I thought about that, but was warned that I might get arrested as a spy. Even my Leica was so unusually small at the time, it was held against me as a "concealed camera" when I was arrested in turn by the Russians, the Japanese and the Chinese, during my travels in the '30s. Eventually they let me go, and keep my camera, because I was clearly an "amateur."' At that, she beamed me a broad smile."

I guess it is just less intimidating than a large DSLR with monster lens. But all compact black ultra fast AF cameras like a Nikon V1 or the new OMD are definitely more stealthy. And so is a small Sigma DP which is great for fast zone focusing.

Bring Jack back!

I really like the last photo of the third set Retow -- the one with the woman pointing at the other on scooter!! Love the action captured, the colors, the contrast of modern vs. old (scooter and super-tight jeans vs. ethnic clothing). Well done!!